Sunday, October 28, 2012

943. Geoengineering: Testing the Waters

FOR almost 20 years, I’ve been spending time on a craggy stretch of
British Columbia’s shoreline called the Sunshine Coast. This summer, I had an
experience that reminded me why I love this place, and why I chose to have a
child in this sparsely populated part of the world.

It was 5 a.m. and my husband and I were up with our 3-week-old son.
Looking out at the ocean, we spotted two towering, black dorsal fins: orcas, or
killer whales. Then two more. We had never seen an orca on the coast, and never
heard of their coming so close to shore. In our sleep-deprived state, it felt
like a miracle, as if the baby had wakened us to make sure we didn’t miss this
rare visit.

The possibility that the sighting may have resulted from something
less serendipitous did not occur to me until two weeks ago, when I read reports
of a bizarre ocean experiment off the islands of Haida Gwaii, several hundred
miles from where we spotted the orcas swimming.

There, an American entrepreneur named Russ George dumped 120 tons of
iron dust off the hull of a rented fishing boat; the plan was to create an
algae bloom that would sequester carbon and thereby combat climate change.

Mr. George is one of a growing number of would-be geoengineers who
advocate high-risk, large-scale technical interventions that would
fundamentally change the oceans and skies in order to reduce the effects of
global warming. In addition to Mr. George’s scheme to fertilize the ocean with
iron, other geoengineering strategies under consideration include pumping
sulfate aerosols into the upper atmosphere to imitate the cooling effects of a
major volcanic eruption and “brightening” clouds so they reflect more of the
sun’s rays back to space.

The risks are huge. Ocean fertilization could trigger dead zones and
toxic tides. And multiple simulations have predicted that mimicking the effects
of a volcano would interfere with monsoons in Asia and Africa, potentially
threatening water and food security for billions of people.

So far, these proposals have mostly served as fodder for computer
models and scientific papers. But with Mr. George’s ocean adventure,
geoengineering has decisively escaped the laboratory. If Mr. George’s account
of the mission is to be believed, his actions created an algae bloom in an area
half of the size of Massachusetts that attracted a huge array of aquatic life,
including whales that could be “counted by the score.”

When I read about the whales, I began to wonder: could it be that the
orcas I saw were on their way to the all-you-can-eat seafood buffet that had
descended on Mr. George’s bloom? The possibility, unlikely though it is,
provides a glimpse into one of the disturbing repercussions of geoengineering:
once we start deliberately interfering with the earth’s climate systems —
whether by dimming the sun or fertilizing the seas — all natural events can
begin to take on an unnatural tinge. An absence that might have seemed a
cyclical change in migration patterns or a presence that felt like a miraculous
gift suddenly feels sinister, as if all of nature were being manipulated behind
the scenes.

Most news reports characterize Mr. George as a “rogue” geoengineer.
But what concerns me, after researching the subject for two years for a
forthcoming book on climate change, is that far more serious scientists, backed
by far deeper pockets, appear poised to actively tamper with the complex and
unpredictable natural systems that sustain life on earth — with huge potential
for unintended consequences.

In 2010, the chairman of the House Committee on Science and Technology
recommended more research into geoengineering; the British government has begun
to spend public money in the field.

Bill Gates has funneled millions of dollars
into geoengineering research. And he has invested in a company, Intellectual
Ventures, that is developing at least two geoengineering tools: the
“StratoShield,” a 19-mile-long hose suspended by helium balloons that would
spew sun-blocking sulfur dioxide particles into the sky and a tool that can
supposedly blunt the force of hurricanes.

The appeal is easy to understand. Geoengineering offers the
tantalizing promise of a climate change fix that would allow us to continue our
resource-exhausting way of life, indefinitely. And then there is the fear.
Every week seems to bring more terrifying climate news, from reports of ice
sheets melting ahead of schedule to oceans acidifying far faster than expected.
At the same time, climate change has fallen so far off the political agenda
that it wasn’t mentioned once during any of the three debates between the
presidential candidates. Is it any wonder that many are pinning their hopes on
a break-the-glass-in-case-of-emergency option that scientists have been cooking
up in their labs?

But with rogue geoengineers on the loose, it is a good time to pause
and ask, collectively, whether we want to go down the geoengineering road.
Because the truth is that geoengineering is itself a rogue proposition. By
definition, technologies that tamper with ocean and atmospheric chemistry
affect everyone. Yet it is impossible to get anything like unanimous consent
for these interventions. Nor could any such consent possibly be informed since
we don’t — and can’t — know the full risks involved until these planet-altering
technologies are actually deployed.

While the United Nations’ climate negotiations proceed from the
premise that countries must agree to a joint response to an inherently communal
problem, geoengineering raises a very different prospect. For well under a
billion dollars, a “coalition of the willing,” a single country or even a
wealthy individual could decide to take the climate into its own hands. Jim
Thomas of the ETC Group, an environmental watchdog group, puts the problem like
this: “Geoengineering says, ‘we’ll just do it, and you’ll live with the
effects.’ ”

The scariest thing about this proposition is that models suggest
that many of the people who could well be most harmed by these technologies are
already disproportionately vulnerable to the impacts of climate change. Imagine
this: North America decides to send sulfur into the stratosphere to reduce the
intensity of the sun, in the hopes of saving its corn crops — despite the real
possibility of triggering droughts in Asia and Africa. In short, geoengineering
would give us (or some of us) the power to exile huge swaths of humanity to
sacrifice zones with a virtual flip of the switch.

The geopolitical ramifications are chilling. Climate change is already
making it hard to know whether events previously understood as “acts of God” (a
freak heat wave in March or a Frankenstorm on Halloween) still belong in that
category. But if we start tinkering with the earth’s thermostat — deliberately
turning our oceans murky green to soak up carbon and bleaching the skies hazy
white to deflect the sun — we take our influence to a new level. A drought in
India will come to be seen — accurately or not — as a result of a conscious
decision by engineers on the other side of the planet. What was once bad luck
could come to be seen as a malevolent plot or an imperialist attack.

There will be other visceral, life-changing consequences. A study
published this spring in Geophysical Research Letters found that if we inject
sulfur aerosols into the stratosphere in order to dial down the sun, the sky
would not only become whiter and significantly brighter, but we would also be
treated to more intense, “volcanic” sunsets. But what kind of relationships can
we expect to have with those hyper-real skies? Would they fill us with awe — or
with vague unease? Would we feel the same when beautiful wild creatures cross
our paths unexpectedly, as happened to my family this summer? In a popular book
on climate change, Bill McKibbenwarned that we face “The End of
Nature.” In the age of geoengineering, we might find ourselves confronting the
end of miracles, too.

Mr. George and his ocean-altering experiment provides an opportunity
for public debate about an issue essentially absent during the election cycle:
What are the real solutions to climate change? Wouldn’t it be better to change
our behavior — to reduce our use of fossil fuels — before we begin fiddling
with the planet’s basic life-support systems?

Unless we change course, we can expect to hear many more reports about
sun-shielders and ocean fiddlers like Mr. George, whose iron dumping exploit
did more than test a thesis about ocean fertilization: it also tested the
waters for future geoengineering experiments. And judging by the muted response
so far, the results of Mr. George’s test are clear: geoengineers proceed,
caution be damned.

The author, most recently, of “The Shock Doctrine: The Rise of Disaster Capitalism.”